Overview:

The Ever-changing DDoS Attack

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks continue to remain the top threat to IT security and have evolved in almost every way to do what they do best: shut down your vital online services. Never has a problem been so dynamic and broad-based without being tied to one particular technology. There is almost an unlimited array of tools that Hacktivists and Cyberterrorists can use to prevent access to your network. Sophisticated DDoS attacks target Layer 7 application services where they are much smaller in size making it nearly impossible for traditional ISP-based mitigation methods to detect them.

To combat these attacks, you need a solution that is equally dynamic and broadbased. Fortinet’s FortiDDoS Attack Mitigation appliances use behavior-based attack detection methods and 100% ASIC-based processors to deliver the most advanced and fastest DDoS attack mitigation on the market today.

A Different and Better Approach to DDoS Attack Mitigation

Only Fortinet uses a 100% ASIC approach to its DDoS products without the overhead and risks of a CPU or CPU/ASIC hybrid system. The FortiASIC-TP2 transaction processors provide both detection and mitigation of DDoS attacks. The FortiASIC-TP2 processor handles all Layer 3, 4 and 7 traffic types, speeding detection and mitigation performance resulting in the lowest latency in the industry.

FortiDDoS uses a 100% heuristic/behavior-based method to identify threats compared to competitors that rely primarily on signature-based matching. Instead of using pre-defined signatures to identify attack patterns, FortiDDoS builds a baseline of normal activity and then monitors traffic against it. Should an attack begin, FortiDDoS sees this as an anomaly and then immediately takes action to mitigate it. You’re protected from known attacks and from the unknown “zero-day” attacks as FortiDDoS doesn’t need to wait for a signature file to be updated.

Easy to deploy and manage with intuitive GUI and comprehensive reporting and analysis tools.

Highlights:

FortiDDoS also handles attack mitigation differently than other solutions. In other DDoS attack mitigation appliances, once an attack starts, it’s 100% blocked until the threat is over. If an event is mistakenly matched to a signature creating a “false positive”, then all traffic comes to a halt requiring intervention. FortiDDoS uses a more surgical approach by monitoring normal traffic and then using a reputation penalty scoring system, rates IP addresses that are “good” and others that are causing the problem.

FortiDDoS blocks the offending IP addresses then repeatedly reevaluates the attack at user defined periods (every 15 seconds by default). If the offending IP addresses continue to be a persistent threat for each of these reevaluation periods, their reputation penalty score will increase and will eventually be blacklisted once they hit a user-defined threshold.

Included real-time reporting and dashboards give you the tools you need to review attacks and threats to your services. You can run reports as you need them or schedule them to be delivered to you on a regular basis. Dashboards allow you to view and understand attack trends in an easy-to-use single screen layout. Whether it’s general status reporting or in-depth granular attack analysis, FortiDDoS provides detailed information on service level attacks and mitigation responses for specific events or over periods of time.

Flexible Defensive Mechanisms

FortiDDoS protects against every DDoS attack including Bulk Volumetric, Layer 7 Application, and SSL/HTTPS attacks. From the oldest trick in the book to the latest in advanced service-level attacks, FortiDDoS has you covered.

Bulk Volumetric Attacks were the first DDoS attack types and continue to pose significant threats today. Usually ISPs prevent most simple attacks of this type, however increasingly they are used to mask more complex application-level attack methods. The easiest way to deal with these types of threats is to simply block all traffic until the attack stops. The FortiDDoS IP Reputation scoring system continues to let “good” traffic in while mitigating IP addresses that are causing the problem. This process not only provides the protection you need, but also minimizes the effects of a “false positive” match from halting good client traffic.

Layer 7 Targeted Attacks are the fastest growing source of DDoS attacks. They attempt to exploit vulnerabilities within a service to exhaust its resources rendering it unavailable. Usually these types of attacks are embedded in Bulk Volumetric Attacks, however they can occur separately. As these types of attacks require considerably less bandwidth to deny service, they are more difficult to detect and regularly pass from ISPs directly to your network. All Layer 7 targeted attacks, large or small, will trigger changes at the service level that will be identified by the FortiDDoS behavioral analysis engine and mitigated.

SSL-Based Attacks use SSL-based encryption methods to hide the content of the attack packets. Additionally, the encryption methods employed will often mean that there are far less resources available that need to be exhausted. Most signature-based solutions require decryption of the traffic to perform matching against known attack profiles. With a behavioral system such as FortiDDoS, these attacks are detected without decryption as they will cause a change in behavior. This change can then be compared with normal behavior and an understanding of the resources available. When the relevant resources become threatened does the FortiDDoS put mitigation in place and respond to the attack.

Key Features and Benefits

100% Behavioral-based Detection

FortiDDoS doesn’t rely on signature files that need to be updated with the latest threats so you’re protected from both known and unknown “zero-day” attacks.

Security Analysis Service For FortiDDoSThe Service provides the Customer with a recommendation for a service protection profile according to Fortinet¹s best practices. The service is delivered remotely and covers an individual appliance or two units operating in asymmetric pair mode. The service is fulfilled using a FortiCare Service Contract as such Terms & Conditions apply.